Wednesday, April 17, 2013

The sentencing of Father Charles Engelhardt and former Catholic school teacher Bernard Shero, originally sentenced for Thursday, has been postponed until June 12.

A clerk in Judge Ellen Ceisler's office said today that the sentencing most likely would be postponed, at the request of defense lawyers. Lawyers in the case say the date of the sentencing was moved to give them more time to study trial transcripts, which just arrived April 11.

The trial ended Jan. 30, when jurors convicted Engelhardt and Shero on 9 of 10 counts for the repeated rapes of a victim identified in a 2011 grand jury report as Billy Doe.

It's not about Dennis, Dave. Dennis has nothing to do with these mens' convictions. The Judge did the right thing in delaying the sentencing. Their lawyers should have every opportunity to review the trial transcripts.

This is to give lawyers more time to go through the trial documents with a fine tooth comb to bring up relevant issues to the judge as she discerns how long each will have to serve for their "alleged" crimes. As I have said before, most likely judge will sentence both to three - six year terms while knowing full well that once appellate court reviews issues raised by defense lawyers and either vacates the sentences or orders a new trial, the defendants will have served most of their sentence upon being released due to a vacated sentence. For her to give life sentences of 35 years plus to each defendant would be way over the top.

Bottom line - both defendants are being punished for the sins of others which will never be prosecuted due to expiration of Statute of Limitations and death or declining mental faculties in old age.

Will Billy Doe be happy? Better still, was Judas happy with the twelve pieces of silver he got from the Romans once he threw Jesus to be arrested?

Actually dennis is probably choking on the sediment knowing these 2 defendants will have their rightful opportunity to painstakingly sift thru that testimony and have their attornies present factual arguments to refute those illogical verdicts. There was so much reasonable doubt in this trial that was blatantly ignored by those 12 jurors that perhaps this will even warrant a full investigation of the entire grand jury and the prosecutor's office in this particular case by the proper authorities. Trust me, there's still a long way to go in this case until justice will truly be given to these 2 defendants.

I agree with you this case has a long way to go and I'm not taking sides just pointing out some facts. Appeals, New Trials and Investigations are not only possible but likely in this case but unless something extraordinary happens the two defendants will remain in jail while the entire saga plays out. Ralph and others with more knowledge of the legal system can chime in but I don't think a release from prison is likely until a different verdict is forthcoming.

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